Transcripts of the Kultura Liberalna debate, I hate politics.

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These are transcripts from a Kultura Liberalna Time to Talk debate on the diminishing faith which people have in contemporary politics and how this impacts upon the societies we live in. To read more about the background to the debate and its speakers and to watch video highlights of the evening in Warsaw, click here. Otherwise, you will be able to find both an English and a Polish language transcript excerpt below.

I hate politics! On people’s cynicism and the dissolution of trust.

In September 2014, Radosław Markowski, Katarzyna Szymielewicz and Jan Zielonka met to discuss Polish politicians and citizenry, the negative impact Facebook is having on democracy and why it is still worth engaging in politics.

Łukasz Pawłowski: John Adams, the second president of the United States, said that democracy never lasts for a long time and that there has never been a democracy that didn’t eventually destroy itself [“Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.”]. Thomas Jefferson, his successor in the office, wrote that every generation needs a revolution and that the tree of liberty must from time to time be refreshed with the blood of patriots and tyrants [“What country before ever existed a century and a half without a rebellion? And, what country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”]. Central Europe experienced its last revolution twenty-five years ago and Western Europe almost half a century ago, in 1968. Does democracy in the Western world stand today on the threshold of revolution or suicide?

Jan Zielonka: I disagree with your diagnosis. In the last thirty years we have experienced at least three different revolutions in Eastern and Western Europe: a geopolitical revolution, when the Soviet Union fell; an economic revolution, when, as a result of globalisation and the creation of the common market, economic borders vanished; and an Internet revolution. All these transformations have fundamentally changed the relationships between governments and their citizens, yet many journalists still seem to think that, in the absence of people going out onto the streets and murdering each other, nothing is really happening. This is simply not the case.

Łukasz Pawłowski: These changes are, however, all happening without any active participation on behalf of their citizens. Have the citizens of democratic countries become disinterested in the direct creation of political reality?

Radosław Markowski: Political scientists have been perpetrating a false image of the average citizen, supposedly very interested in public affairs, for decades. A significant part of public opinion follows them in that view. In this vision, every man wakes up in the morning and excitedly thinks: “what else should we tell our politicians to help them make our lives better?”. However, we know very well that, if we knocked on the door of an average Pole and asked who he was, he would not say that he was a liberal, a conservative or a social democrat, rather he would say that he is a physician, an engineer or a dog lover. Most people are either not all interested in politics, or they are interested in it in only a very marginal fashion. We have expected too much of our citizens and these expectations have proved to be misguided.

Łukasz Pawłowski: Why has this happened?

Radosław Markowski: For the average man – depending on his interests and personal situation – only two or three socio-political issues tend to be of importance, for instance, education, healthcare or environmental protection, sometimes defence. However, politics must include a wider spectrum of issues, several of which – agricultural subsidies, cultural policy, public administration and the like – will appear entirely irrelevant when perceived from an isolated individual perspective. A citizen might therefore come to be of the opinion that his/her government spends its time dealing with minor, insignificant issues, while failing to address the [for said individual] really important ones. The conviction may thus arise, that the government is wasting money, time and energy on minor stupidities.

Łukasz Pawłowski: You are one of the authors of the recently published Democratic Audit of Poland. Statistical data presented in this audit, shows that the majority of Poles do not trust their democratic institutions. In 2004, 21 percent of partcipating Poles said that they had faith in the Polish cabinet and parliament andonly 14 percent trusted political parties. Today it is slightly better, however, we are still one of the European countries with the lowest levels of trust in our political representatives – only Bulgaria and Portugal have received worse results.

Radosław Markowski: Who do Poles trust? Do they trust the Church, NGOs, their family? Secularised citizens, liberated from the influence of authority, tend, on the whole to be less likely to trust any entity or individual.

Łukasz Pawłowski: New technologies, in particular the Internet, were supposed to be one of the ways to increase people’s engagement in politics and their trust in politicians. The main argument was that the Internet would provide wide access to information and help people to organise themselves. The Panoptykon Foundation, run by Katarzyna Szymielewicz, tries to show that the worldwide web is becoming a tool of control, rather than a means of liberation. Instead of becoming hunters, citizens are becoming hunted, as states and politicians gather more and more information about them. Has the Internet become a tool for developing civic liberties and democracy or do these hopes remain unfulfilled?

Katarzyna Szymielewicz: There is no straightforward answer to this question. It seems to me that, in the spirit of Evgeny Morozov’s views, more sceptical voices have started to dominate of late. The Internet doesn’t just provide quicker and easier access to politically important information, it is also a dangerous toy, which provides access to many different forms of entertainment and, as such, raises the risk of of our drowning in a new form of consumerism. Moreover, it also helps remove the motivation for getting involved in fighting political battles. From the point of view of a citizen-consumer, the net is a more effective way of resolving problems, providing far more effective access to the required goods and services than can be achieved through a general election. Societies, which in other circumstances might have taken to the streets in response to inequalities and rising prices, have been able to relieve some of these burdens thanks to the opportunities offered up through the Internet. One can now buy one’s goods at much lower prices online and people are also able to better organise themselves and form, for example, purchasing communities, in which, through the strength of their membership, they are able to negotiate better prices than they would be able to alone.

Łukasz Pawłowski: So, people are not rioting, because they can complain through social media and download movies for free?

Katarzyna Szymielewicz: People give up on politics voluntarily, but not because they want to achieve some higher goals, rather to fulfil needs of their own, which once would have been dealt with by the state. When we speak of protests in Poland, we can speak about the protests surrounding ACTA, which are often used as an example of youth engagement in politics, but which, in my mind, only proved that it was possible to mobilise citizens for a very short period of time and in order to deal with a very specific issue. These types of protest do not aim to change the system or to revise those rules of the game, which distance politics from the real needs of citizens. People protesting against ACTA simply wanted the government to get its hands off the Internet, they wanted it to refrain from intervening in their affairs with its actions. The idea that the state might introduce rigid regulations or troublesome sanctions motivates us to act, yet we do so, not in the name of some abstract concept of liberty, but in the name of specific personal interests. I can see this process much more clearly after five years of working at the Panoptykon Foundation. From the very beginning, our goal has been not only to fight for rights and liberties in the context of new surveillance techniques, but also to engage people – to increase social control over the way governments work today. I can see now that this is a project doomed to be considered niche in its aims, an offer of interest only for those very few, who look to improve their situation and strive to see the bigger picture, acting in spheres extending above and beyond the conveniences of their everyday lives. Most people – and this is not a critique, but rather a sober analysis of the reality – simply want to be entertained, they want to buy a fancy coffee, go on holidays and watch films. If we take these small luxuries away from them, then we will have a revolution, yet, this will not be a struggle for a better democratic system.

Łukasz Pawłowski: I don’t understand why these new technologies should serve to pacify people and keep them at home, while history teaches us that, in the past, new means of communication were seen as the driving forces in movements for social change? Take for instance French newspapers spreading revolutionary ideas two hundred years ago.

Katarzyna Szymielewicz: Those events were the result of some very concrete social problems, so serious that nothing short of a revolution would have been able to resolve them. Meanwhile, life in Europe nowadays is not a struggle for survival in a purely material sense – we don’t suffer from hunger, governments don’t shoot people in the streets. Most people’s basic needs are fulfilled and all their remaining needs are so elaborate that they can be better realised on an individual basis – for instance through online communities of consumer groups. There are much easier and safer ways of getting what we want than running long-term political campaigns to change our laws and ruling classes.

Łukasz Pawłowski: A question to professor Markowski – has the development of the Internet really discouraged people from engaging in political life?

Radosław Markowski: It was not really the Internet as such, but rather social media like Facebook. People there interact with people with views similar to their own, they exchange opinions and often radicalise each other. And, then they go out onto the streets and they’re really surprised that people there turn out to have different views. Social media gives us an impression of pluralism, but this is an illusion. Online communities tend to select their members on the basis of unwritten rules of opportunism and conformism.

Łukasz Pawłowski: Does this mean that politicians can ignore such voices?

Radosław Markowski: We get used to criticising politicians easily, however, I think that we should also be critical of our citizens and demand more of them. Without the control of responsible citizens, politicians have little incentive to follow their programmes and behave responsibly. If a citizen makes political choices, following, not some rational criteria, but rather what his own illusions have led him to believe, then there is little requirement for a politician to fulfil his/her promises, knowing that they will in any case be assessed on other criteria. If I were in the government, I would therefore prioritise educating citizens, so that they would be able to assess policies rationally. Democratic politics can only function when its citizens are educated and informed enough to be able to make rational political decisions.

Jan Zielonka: That’s a very paternalistic approach. We should teach citizens how to behave? And, who exactly should do that and what should he or she teach them? How should these citizens vote?! We should talk to them, explain that some specific decisions will have concrete results – for instance that a bigger defence budget means less money for education, yet the ultimate decision, about what choice to make, must remain theirs to make individually. We have a very elitist understanding of democracy in Poland. No. Democracy is a bottom-up, not a top-down process. We have to take society as it is, and we have to let it function as it wants to. If people don’t want to engage, it’s their choice.

Łukasz Pawłowski: What though if a political party stands for election with a programme of, let’s say, lowering taxes, but then raises them once it’s in power. Surely, if people then still vote for them at the next election, despite this betrayal, then their candidates will soon cease to care about what promises they make. If politicians are not taken to account for the promises they make, then how should we ensure that we retain control of their actions?

Jan Zielonka: Countries get the governments they deserve. If people vote for frauds, they have to face the consequences of their choices. The Italians knew that there were question marks over the way that Silvio Berlusconi had made his fortune and that he was mainly interested in furthering his financial interests during his term in office, and yet, they kept electing him. That’s what democracy means – making choices and facing their consequences.

Radosław Markowski: The bases for these choices ought, however, to be objective facts. A situation where everyone can define the truth on their own terms is a dead-end. I don’t want to tell people how to vote, but I do believe that such choices should be founded on knowledge and not on some media-created myths. An example? We keep hearing that social inequality is rising in Poland, yet there is no scientific research to prove this!

Katarzyna Szymielewicz: I can perfectly understand Professor Markowski’s wish to raise the level of democratic debate and to convince people that they should make their choices based on factual information. Unfortunately, after a few years running an institution, which aims to pursue such goals, I have started to have more and more doubts about whether it’s at all possible.

In the Panoptykon Foundation we have learnt that we must present our arguments in an attractive, sometimes even entertaining, way, if we want anyone to stop and think about them at all. I am not sure what the reason for this is – perhaps we have too many urgent political issues? In my opinion, the question of liberty and privacy, especially in the context of fast technological development, is absolutely crucial, but I can understand that other people might have different priorities. There are many debates on important issues – geopolitics, economics, ecology – which I don’t participate in personally, because I don’t have the requisite competencies to understand the consequences of the issues being discussed. In such cases, I put my faith in the respective experts, yet on which grounds do we select them? In most cases, not based on the value of their arguments, but rather on the ways in which they deliver these arguments. The increasing complexity of our world has been the death of meritocracy in politics. Even though many countries still have democratic procedures, we are in fact living in a world run by elites.

Łukasz Pawłowski: Even if that’s true, in the end it is the people who make decisions and whether they make their decisions based on facts or emotions is extremely important. Our debate is being held on the day of the Scottish independence referendum. It seems to me – and this is a question to Professor Zielonka – that the majority of economic, political and security arguments suggest that the Scots should remain in the United Kingdom, yet almost half of them want independence. Is this a triumph of democracy, or rather a sign of the type of degeneration that Professor Markowski talked about?

Jan Zielonka: And, what is it that makes the arguments for remaining in the United Kingdom more rational? Supporters of independence may be convinced that the government should be closer to the citizen, thus in Edinburgh and not in London. They can be convinced that Scotland should have every right to use oilfields on its shores. They can also argue that Great Britain is in fact ruled by banks with a disproportional amount of political and economic influence. The answer to the question, what is rational, will only become clear after the referendum. In democracies, general elections are preceded by public debates, which help determine what is and what isn’t in the public’s interest – just like has taken place in Scotland.

Łukasz Pawłowski: So, each decision is as good as the other?

Jan Zielonka: That’s not the point. Look at other ‘truths’ that used to be held as self-evident – that slavery is a natural state, that women should not have a right to vote and that the poor are simply lazy and that providing them with social assistance may in fact be keeping them from improving themselves. There are many views that used to be considered ‘normal’, yet are not seen as ‘normal’ any more. Our social realities are constantly changing. Besides, not everything in the political world can be examined and measured in numbers, as Professor Markowski believes. A lot depends on informal relationships, sympathies and other emotions. This is one of the reasons why citizens don’t trust politicians. Another reason why faith in politics is fading, is, however, the diminishing influence of the state and the inability of politicians to significantly impact on what is happening at a national level. The level of our future pensions depends much more on what is happening in Beijing or in New York, than it does on what is happening in Warsaw.

Radosław Markowski: The Scottish referendum shows exactly what I have in mind. I have no desire to tell Scots what to choose, but I want all those involved to be clear about exactly what kind of Scotland they want and what kind of country their decisions will result in.

Łukasz Pawłowski: Yet, why would anyone waste their time analysing the results of their decisions, if – as professor Zielonka has said – the fate of peoples and states is nowadays so substantially determined by actors outwith the spheres of democratic political action, such as financial markets or multinational corporations. In such circumstances, being interested in politics and making rational political decisions, which you call for, would in itself be irrational behaviour, as our political decisions would nonetheless lack any real influence.

Radosław Markowski: This sort of global determinism fails to explain why some countries are doing very well, and why others have collapsed. It does not explain, why, twenty-five years after the fall of the Soviet Union, Estonia and Poland have managed to double their GDPs, while other post-communist countries are treading water. Why do Scandinavian countries look the way they do? Because seventy-eighty years ago representatives of all their major political forces sat down together and asked themselves a question: what is more important in a democracy – liberty or equality? They decided that equality was more important. The present social structure of these countries is therefore a result of human reasoning and political consensus, not of any natural forces or globalisation. The world is not as unpredictable and uncontrollable as you suggest and this is precisely why each citizen should be interested in having access to reliable information.

Katarzyna Szymielewicz: I don’t think that the number of really conscious and engaged citizens in any democratic country is significant. Furthermore, I don’t really know what to do in order to convince more people to engage in politics. Certainly we cannot force anyone to do that. This is an organic process, and each society must reach this stage of development at its own pace. In our case, we are currently left with a small group of activists, however, this small group is a priceless asset and we have to ensure that we keep cultivating it.

To read about the background to this debate and its speakers or to see video highlights of the evening itself, please click here.

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